Fiction: Group 4
The Mysterious Traveler
Island School, Herrmann, Anja-Oceane - 14, Fiction: Group 4
he mysterious traveler is what they called him. A young man sailing in his small boat down the pearl
river, passing the British factories. His murky ink blue robe covering scars like stains on rugged skin.
His face hidden by a straw hat. His identity: concealed.
He traveled at the dead of night when the ghostly moon lay high in a sky of unseen stars.
Clouds of coal
that sometimes covered the last of the luminous light like dark spirits that lurked at doorsteps. But the
traveler showed no fear to ghosts nor spirits as he pushed on through the lick of mud waves upon the fragile
boat. His lit lantern guided him through the long lasting gloom.
On both sides of the wooden boat is the dock, where the snores of sleeping villagers would slip through
locked doors. Or sometimes they’d be awake, their windows glowing like a tiny sun that surged through the
drowning dark outside their walls. And at this late hour, some would read, some would gaze out to the
river, where the mysterious traveler swiftly sailed. Or sometimes, not a person would lean against the glass
windows, but a silver smoke that flowed out into night air, stinging your nose with its foul scent. A deadly
scent. A scent that can corrupt your body, your soul, gradually put your life to sleep. Eternally.
A scent, known to all that settle here and smoke it.
Opium.
Every man and woman smokes it. Their minds, their bodies. Slowly dying. Their soul sooner or later.
Gone. Their children, only waiting for the discovery of opium. The taste, the feel. The curiosity only to
grow stronger. The eagerness to be older, to reveal why all adults smoke it, to be one of them.
Yet there are few who resist it. And one is the man that sails his fragile boat down the river at this late hour.
The Mysterious Traveler.
He is seen each night by villagers that awake and stand by the window, the candle light flickering beside
them. Rumors of him rippled through the village like a stone dropped in silent water, the ripples spreading.
Some say he is a ghost, a spirit. Others thought he was human, here to make business. Some stay quiet. Most
feared him.
It was a never ending echo, the gossips. The man began to be known as something more
“A freak, A monster, A ghost….A mystery” Like those words belonged to a voice in your head telling you
what you really were.
He accepted it.
He continued to sail through the river.
But tonight will be different. A large ship is sleeping by the docks. Its vast masts, its sails tower above him. A
ship, filled with a deadly substance.
Opium.
For the first time, the traveler stared up above him. A flag mixed with scarlet and deep dim blue, waving in
the air and shining in the moonlight. Like packs of wolves that proudly howl under the celestial moon. The
traveler cringed at the sight of it, bile rising at the back of his throat. He snarled in hate. Eagerness of his one
addiction: Revenge.
Revenge for the Opium they sold and the life of his loved one. Taken. To Eternal sleep.
This he could never except.
Because the people thought wrong, he is not filled with mystery.
T
